Reproducible data collection

Content

PFTC Courses

PFTC Courses

Design spreadsheet

Spreadsheet content

• ID (unique ID for each observation, individual)
• Date, time, observation number
• Location: region/site
• Experimental design: block, plot, replicate, number of observation, treatments
• Organism: species/population/genet
• Response
• Predictors
• METADATA: recorder/scribe, weather, notes

Design spreadsheet - data validation

Rectangular spreadsheet - good example

• rectangular.
• not have empty cells, rows or columns, titles or double headers.

Figure 1: ?(caption)

Rectangular spreadsheet - bad example

Figure 2: ?(caption)

Long or wide format

Figure 3: ?(caption)

Single value per cell

Tidy spreadsheets follow the following rules:

• each variable should be one specific column,
• each observation should be one specific row,
• each cell at the intersection of a row and a column contains a single value.

Figure 4: Wide (A) and long (B) data table.

Consistency

Figure 5: Inconsistency in species names

Meaningful names

Figure 6: Final doc by PhDcomics.com

Style

Figure 7: Different styles for naming objects. Credit: Allison Horst.

Standards

Use global data standards when available.

Figure 8: ?(caption)